Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - Giving up the gains in the previous session, the Japanese stock market is significantly lower on Friday, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark Nikkei 225 is falling below the 32,400 level, dragged by weakness in index heavyweights and exporters.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is losing 292.98 points or 0.90 percent to 32,353.48, after hitting a low of 32,248.24 earlier. Japanese stocks closed sharply higher on Thursday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 6 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is down almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Honda is slipping more than 7 percent and Toyota is declining more than 1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is losing more than 2 percent, while Tokyo Electron is edging up 0.3 percent and Screen Holdings is surging more than 5 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is gaining more than 1 percent, Mizuho Financial is edging up 0.4 percent and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is adding almost 1 percent.

Among major exporters, Sony is down almost 4 percent, Panasonic is declining more than 2 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is edging down 0.2 percent, while Canon is edging up 0.4 percent.

Among other major losers, GC Holdings is plummeting almost 13 percent and Nikon is plunging more than 10 percent, while Kobe Steel and Takara Holdings are losing more than 5 percent each. Renesas Electronics is slipping almost 5 percent, while Nissan Motor and Recruit Holdings are losing more than 4 percent each. Sumco is down more than 3 percent, while Subaru and Nintendo are declining almost 3 percent.

Conversely, Trend Micro is skyrocketing almost 16 percent, Resonac Holdings is soaring more than 11 percent, Comsys Holdings is surging almost 8 percent, Taiheiyo Cement is gaining almost 6 percent and NEXON is adding more than 5 percent, while T&D Holdings and Pacific Metals are up more than 3 percent each.

In economic news, the M2 money stock in Japan was up 2.4 percent on year in October, the Bank of Japan said on Friday - coming in at 1,235.1 trillion yen. That was in line with expectations and unchanged from the September reading.

The M3 money stock rose an annual 1.8 percent to 1,590.2 trillion yen, also unchanged from the previous month. The L money stock was up 2.0 percent on year at 2,114.8 trillion yen, easing from 2.1 percent a month earlier.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 151 yen-range on Friday.

On Wall Street, stocks showed a lack of direction for much of morning trading on Thursday but came under considerable pressure in the afternoon. The major averages all showed notable moves to the downside, with the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 snapping their longest winning streaks in two years.

The major averages climbed off their worst levels going into the close but remained firmly negative. The Nasdaq slumped 128.97 points or 0.9 percent to 13,521.45, the S&P 500 slid 35.43 points or 0.8 percent to 4,347.35 and the Dow fell 220.33 points or 0.7 percent to 33,891.94.

Meanwhile, the major European markets moved to the upside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index jumped by 1.1 percent, the German DAX Index and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index advanced by 0.8 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively.

Crude oil prices climbed higher on Thursday after two straight sessions of decline on concerns about the outlook for energy demand. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for December rose $0.41 or 0.5 percent at $75.74 a barrel, due to some short-covering and bargain hunting.